In the UK, even in this constitutional monarchy, the prospect of becoming “King of the Road” seems to have taken a decidedly republican turn. “Lorry Driver” was the go-to profession that answered the wanderlust in every childhood dream. The “HGV” licence (heavy goods vehicle) was the ticket that granted the keys to the palace on wheels. The transport and logistics sector is facing up to skills shortages, and wondering from where salvation may come. From the rails, says optimistic UK Editor Simon Walton.
The shortage of lorry drivers is by now familiar: long hours, unsocial shifts, growing regulatory and training burdens, and an ageing workforce have all combined to make recruitment and retention progressively harder. “A lack of HGV drivers usually grabs the spotlight in these conversations – understandably,” as Road Haulage Association spokesman Paul Mummery notes. “So, given it’s a visible, recognisable job everyone can relate to, the consequences of a lack of drivers are obvious.” What is less often discussed is how the rail freight sector might play a complementary role — not by replacing road haulage in its entirety, but by alleviating some of the pressure on the long-haul side of the road business.
Recruiting for rail freight drivers
Recent adverts illustrate that the rail freight sector is actively recruiting. Visit any of the rail freight operators’ jobs pages and you’ll find examples like “Train Driver (Intermodal)” within a salary bracket of £36,000-£60,000. At least one agency posted as recently as yesterday with a salary up to £69,000. Be aware that there are bogus adverts out there, just seeking your personal details – but you get the picture.
That said, the freight-train driver pool remains small relative to the HGV driver population. It has also been common for freight rail operators to recruit from their passenger-train counterparts, especially when additional capacity is required. Yet the scale of the passenger-train driver workforce is far greater than that of the freight-train driver workforce — and the road-haulage shortfall is still orders of magnitude larger than the rail freight recruitment challenge. In other words, yes, rail can recruit more drivers, but the opportunity to shift large volumes of freight from road to rail is the real lever, rather than expecting a one-to-one transfer of drivers from lorry to locomotive.
This is not just a UK-only problem
The issue of driver shortage is far from confined here to perfidious Albion. A report carried by WorldCargo News revealed that in the New World, “US road freight companies are increasingly turning to third-party carriers to cope with persistent driver shortages. The necessity comes even as concerns over tariffs and rising vehicle costs begin to ease”. This underscores the global nature of the challenge. Long-haul road transport is under strain in many jurisdictions, and logistics networks are being pressured accordingly.
In the UK context, the long-distance lorry driver is a harder role to fill: more nights away, more regulatory complexity, and a smaller talent pool. It would be an exaggeration to say “no one wants to do it”, but the average age is high and recruiting sufficient new entrants is proving difficult. By contrast, many delivery-van and small-truck drivers (day jobs, home for tea each evening, simpler driving qualifications required) are much easier to recruit. Thus, the distinction between long-haul road freight (harder to staff) and “last-mile” or short-haul road freight (still scalable) becomes important — and this is where rail freight can help.
Where rail freight fits in
Here is where the long-haul “trunk” function of freight rolls to the rescue. The rail freight sector specialises in moving bulk loads, containers, and bulk aggregates over long distances. These are flows that would otherwise require many HGVs and hundreds of driver hours. By transferring those flows onto rail, the number of driver shifts on the road is reduced, freeing up road personnel for shorter, more local, more flexible tasks.
It is not a simple binary of rail vs road. Road freight handles far more tonnage and far more routes than rail. Rail freight volumes remain a fraction of overall freight-tonne-kilometres. The issue is not only the number of truck drivers (important as it is) but how much of the freight flow can realistically be switched onto rail, thereby reducing pressure on the road-haulage system.
With each freight train able to replace 50-75 HGV trips (or more, depending on load, distance, and terrain), the contribution of rail freight becomes significant even with a comparatively small number of train drivers. Road-haulage drivers are quite rightly still required for short-haul, flexible work, especially “last-mile” delivery where rail cannot reach. Rail doesn’t need tens of thousands of drivers to make a dent — a few thousand well-deployed rail freight flows can reduce demand for long-haul drivers and thus ease one pressure point in the road sector.
Concluding with collaboration, not competition
Working together offers an alternative to long-haul lorry trips, by absorbing flows better suited to rail, by freeing up scarce HGV-driver resources for the short-haul tasks where road is inherently dominant. There is no war between road and rail — far from it. What the facts show is that each mode has a key role. Rail produces high tonnage per driver, and road brings flexibility and reach.
In the long distance and the short haul freight of it, rail freight trains can replace up to 75 drivers on each run, while truck drivers are plentiful for multiple short trips and schedules that get them home in time for tea. The rail freight driver pool may be smaller, but in terms of loads moved, they punch above their weight. Right now, in a skills-tight market, rail has something to offer road haulage and the economy at large. “Monarch of the Multimodal” might be the new crowning title for every aspiring school kid.